


Sam's Shirt

by Morgana



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-07
Updated: 2011-08-07
Packaged: 2017-10-22 08:58:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/236342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morgana/pseuds/Morgana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was just a stupid blue sweatshirt. So how come it meant the world to Dean?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sam's Shirt

It was just a stupid blue sweatshirt. They'd gotten it at a Goodwill in Helena, or maybe it was Casper, or one of a thousand other places they'd been. There really wasn't anything special about the hoodie - it was just a plain navy blue sweatshirt with YALE written on the front in white letters. But Sam loved it, wore the thing at least once a week in the winter for the last two years. It was the first thing he'd pulled out in the fall and the last thing he put away in the spring, and if there was one single shirt that would always mean Sam for Dean, it was that stupid hoodie.

So when Sam was packing for Stanford - _leaving them, leaving **him**_ \- Dean swiped the shirt when he wasn't looking. It was criminally easy, really, just a quick shove and it was stashed under his pillow and Dean pretended he didn't know where it was when Sam started frantically looking for it, digging under the bed and everything. It was childish and petty, he knew that, taking Sam's favorite shirt to punish him for going, but it made things just a little more bearable, knowing that Sam was losing something as well.

John moved them on almost immediately after Sam left. Dean shoved the shirt into his duffel bag and forgot about it for the next month. It wasn't until he was in some little town outside of Minneapolis, where fall was setting in early and hard, that he went looking for something warmer and found Sam's sweatshirt. Dean didn't think twice, just pulled it on and as soon as he had, he was inundated with the scent that clung to the fabric like it was woven into it.

 _Sam._ Irish Spring soap and Speed Stick deodorant and the crappy generic shampoo that he always used, all of it mixing with something uniquely Sam, something that Dean remembered from the time he was just a baby, when he would curl up against him, sleep-warm and slightly sweaty. One breath and he could almost pretend like his brother was right there with him, like he'd crept up behind him to wrap his arms around him for one of the hugs that had gotten all too rare during the last year or two.

Dean sank down onto the edge of the bed, raising the sleeve to his nose to take a deeper breath. He could feel his chest tightening and when the cloth against his mouth started to get damp, he didn't bother to fight it, just let the pain pull him under and used his brother's sweatshirt to mop up the tears and hide the evidence. It was familiar and comforting, Sammy helping him cover up the evidence of his weakness, even when he wasn't there to see it or know about it.

He ended up sleeping in the shirt that night, curled up in a cocoon of his brother's scent, and for the first time since Sam had left, he slept through the whole night without having to drink himself into oblivion to get there. When he woke up, he pulled the shirt off and packed it carefully back into his bag, telling himself that he'd mail it back to Sam the first chance he got.

But then there was the pookah in Lake Eerie and the wood sprite outside of Salt Lake City, and somehow or another, Dean never managed to make it to the post office. Instead, Sam's favorite blue sweatshirt ended up becoming Dean's favorite blue sweatshirt, although he wasn't about to wear it out in public. Too many chances for something to happen to it, for one thing, and too many strange smells that might mix in with the fabric and erase the Sammy-ness of it. And besides, there was something nice about coming in from a job and taking a shower, then wrapping up in Sam's shirt.

Dean didn't really mean to start sleeping in the sweatshirt every night. It wasn't like it was a conscious decision; he just slept so much better when he had it on that he ended up reaching for it more often than not until it somehow became a regular thing. The problem was that after about a month or so, the shirt was starting to smell less like Sam and more like him. Without really thinking about it, Dean found himself switching to Sam's soap and deodorant, trying to extend some of the Sammy-smell, and if there were times he thought that it smelled like both him and Sam, then he really wasn't responsible for what he dreamed, was he?

It was after one of _those_ dreams, the ones where Sam was spread out beneath him and begging, that Dean decided he'd had enough of wallowing in his brother's castoffs. He was going to Stanford to get his Sammy back, and if he didn't want to come with him, then he'd drop the sweatshirt off at Sam's dorm or toss it in the closest dumpster, whichever was more convenient. Either way, he was done with trying to make do with wrapping himself in a sweatshirt and clinging to a fading scent that was more Dean now than Sam.

He made the 1700 mile drive in just over two days, pushing himself and his baby to the limit but unable to hold back now that he'd made up his mind. When he tried calling Sam somewhere around Boulder, he got voicemail and hung up without saying anything. The things he needed to say weren't really message material, and maybe it was best that Sam didn't know he coming; less chance of him hiding out in the library or somewhere else to get away from Dean that way. And he wasn't letting Sammy get away until he'd had his chance to make his case and have his say.

Of course, it only took one look at Sam for him to realize that he'd wasted his time and gas in making the trip. Or more specifically, one look at the tall blonde that was snuggled up against Sam like they were welded together at the hip.

Dean didn't bother to stick around after that. He floored the Impala out of the parking lot and very carefully didn't look in the rearview mirror to see if Sam was watching him drive off. If he'd heard the engine, he'd know that Dean had come for him; there was no mistaking the sound of his baby in full throttle, and they'd both grown up with that sound as familiar to them as their father's voice, but none of that mattered now. Not when Sam was obviously happier away from them - away from _him_ , with his pretty girlfriend who smiled up at him like he'd hung the moon. He probably didn't even remember the shirt he'd left behind, and in a few years, Dean figured he'd be lucky if Sam bothered to remember the brother he'd discarded along with it.

He headed north and spent a week in Seattle, drinking himself into blackouts every night and waking up with a different body beside him every morning. Sam's shirt stayed on him the whole time, and when Dean finally sobered up, there wasn't a trace of Sam left on it, every last hint eradicated by booze and smoke and sex. The next time he did laundry, he threw the sweatshirt in the washer, then buried it at the bottom of his bag along with all those thoughts that he wasn't supposed to have anyway.

There were a few times he thought about giving it back: when Sam came back, when he needed clothes after the fire, or after the car accident, when he turned to Dean with a lost expression in his eyes and told him he wasn't allowed to die on him, but every time he managed to talk himself out of it. The shirt was his now, bought with years of lonely nights and single hotel rooms, and he wasn't giving it back, no matter what.

Sam found it a week after the hounds dragged him down to Hell, when he was going through his brother's bag looking for an extra pair of socks.


End file.
